Like several other prominent Republicans, Newt Gingrich slammed Mitt Romney's assertion in a conference call with donors last week that he lost the 2012 presidential election because of "gifts" President Barack Obama gave to blacks, Hispanics and younger voters during his first term in the White House.

"It's nuts," Gingrich told guest host Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "First of all, it's insulting. This would be like Wal-Mart having a bad week and going, 'The customers have really been unruly.' I mean, the job of a political leader in part is to understand the people. If we can't offer a better future that is believable to more people, we're not going to win."

Last week, the former House Speaker admitted he was "dumbfounded" by Obama's victory--and Romney's poor performance at the polls.

"The president won an extraordinary victory," Gingrich said on NBC's "Today" show. "And the fact is we owe him the respect of trying to understand what they did and how they did it. But if you had said to me three weeks ago, Mitt Romney would get fewer votes than John McCain and it looks like he'll be 2 million fewer, I would have been dumbfounded."But the disbelief soon turned to disillusion over Romney's divisive comments.

"I'm very disappointed with Governor Romney's analysis, which I believe is insulting and profoundly wrong," Gingrich said in an interview with KLRU-TV in Austin. "First of all, we didn't lose Asian-Americans because they got any gifts. He did worse with Asian-Americans than he did with Latinos. This is the hardest-working and most successful ethnic group in America--they ain't into gifts.

"Second, it's an insult to all Americans," he continued. "It reduces us to economic entities. You have no passion, no idealism, no dreams, no philosophy. If it had been that simple, my question would be, 'Why didn't you outbid him?' He had enough billionaire supporters, if buying the electorate was the key, he could have got all his super PAC friends together and said, don't buy ads, give gifts. Be like the northwest Indians who have gift-giving ceremonies. We could have gone town-by-town and said, 'Come here, let me give you gifts. Here are Republican gifts.' An elephant coming in with gifts on it."

I'm still waiting for Romney to share how he was going to get 12 million people working again with us. He kept stating it over and over... now that he lost I guess he wants to take his little ball (read : plan) and go home with it. Sour grapes huh? Some patriot. I guess you can't love your country unless you are the winner.

The above is sarcasm for those followers who were stupid enough to believe for one minute that he actually had a plan.

Mitt Romney's loss in the 2012 presidential election this month brought unexpected collateral damage on another Republican drive - the much-touted "Young Guns" effort to bring a new crop of party stars to Washington.

The GOP's recruitment campaign was led in California by Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the House majority whip, who joined Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia and 2012 vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as the founders of the group touted as "a new generation of conservative leaders" on Capitol Hill.

Their nationwide effort, funded by the National Republican Congressional Committee, aimed to recruit and promote rising new stars in the party who were chosen for their viability and fundraising potential. It was billed as the best way to revive the party and cultivate new GOP legislators in California and other blue states.

But the results at the polls weren't impressive. All but one of the Young Guns candidates in California were defeated, including Ricky Gill, the 25-year-old Indian American from San Joaquin County, while some longtime GOP veterans lost, including Rep. Dan Lundgren of Gold River (Sacramento County), who fell to up-and-coming Democrat Ami Bera.

One winnerMcCarthy's effort to increase the ranks of Republicans in Congress, assisted by fellow Rep. Devin Nunes of Tulare, ended up with just one winner: Republican David Valadao, a dairy farmer who challenged Democrat John Hernandez in the new 21st District on the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley.

"If this is Kevin McCarthy's idea of resuscitation, we should all be pretty glad he's not a doctor," quipped Andy Stone, communications director of the Democratic House Majority PAC.

But Republicans, including McCarthy - who admitted on election night that he was "depressed" by his party's losses across the nation - already seemed to be looking ahead.

"The Young Guns program will absolutely continue in the 2014 midterms - as will our members' and candidates' efforts to complement Young Guns by putting infrastructure and resources on the ground in places that have been without such support for quite a long time," McCarthy spokesman Mike Long said last week.

"These efforts will put us in a better position in a non-presidential election cycle," Long added. "In 2008, when Young Guns first started, House Republicans lost 21 seats and President Obama was elected president. Two years later, 62 Young Gun candidates were elected to the House and Republicans took the majority. Whip McCarthy has always said that our efforts in California would take two cycles and that we're in it for the long haul."

Still, McCarthy said after the Nov. 6 election that Republicans would have to make some tough assessments about where they can get the best results in the future.

"We're going to look at it and see where we made mistakes," McCarthy told reporters. "There's always places we look at and see where we can improve."

Some state political watchers say McCarthy gets credit for taking on a tough challenge in a state where Republican voter registration has fallen to 29 percent.

"Kevin did the best he could with a short hand," California Republican strategist Patrick Dorinson said. "In California, the Democrat naturally starts off with an advantage. You have a popular president. But in the midterm, there won't be Obama to bring people out to the polls, and if they think they're going to re-create the Obama machine, they're mistaken."

Hopes for futureDorinson said mentoring promising candidates such as Kim Vann, the moderate, pro-choice Colusa County supervisor who lost her race against incumbent Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove (Sacramento County), will help the Young Guns program put a spotlight on future GOP stars in the state.

Some Republicans have suggested that such candidates could get a boost if the state party, troubled by financial and leadership problems, gets a fresh start. Jim Brulte, the former Republican leader in the California Senate and Assembly, could take over as chairman of the California Republican Party in February, after current leader Tom Del Beccaro leaves the post, sources say.

California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton, whose party picked up six Congressional seats in California in the 2012 cycle, said the Democrats' wins were directly related to issues that the Young Guns failed to address.

"We had the ground game and we have the demographics," he said, adding that Latinos, Asians, youth voters and women were solidly Democratic in 2012.

That overwhelming support was a result of seeds planted long ago by the party, Burton said. "In California, we were doing things in 2000, working with county committees, labor leaders and activists. We had good candidates" at the local, state and congressional levels.

Dorinson said such efforts will take time for Republicans to develop and added that the majority party shouldn't get too comfortable.

"Democrats are getting older in this state," he said, adding that California's U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco are in their 70s.

"The longer they stay, the more they keep down the young folks," he said. "And they'll eventually go through the same soul-searching as the Republicans are."

Like several other prominent Republicans, Newt Gingrich slammed Mitt Romney's assertion in a conference call with donors last week that he lost the 2012 presidential election because of "gifts" President Barack Obama gave to blacks, Hispanics and younger voters during his first term in the White House.

"It's nuts," Gingrich told guest host Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "First of all, it's insulting. This would be like Wal-Mart having a bad week and going, 'The customers have really been unruly.' I mean, the job of a political leader in part is to understand the people. If we can't offer a better future that is believable to more people, we're not going to win."

Last week, the former House Speaker admitted he was "dumbfounded" by Obama's victory--and Romney's poor performance at the polls.

"The president won an extraordinary victory," Gingrich said on NBC's "Today" show. "And the fact is we owe him the respect of trying to understand what they did and how they did it. But if you had said to me three weeks ago, Mitt Romney would get fewer votes than John McCain and it looks like he'll be 2 million fewer, I would have been dumbfounded."But the disbelief soon turned to disillusion over Romney's divisive comments.

"I'm very disappointed with Governor Romney's analysis, which I believe is insulting and profoundly wrong," Gingrich said in an interview with KLRU-TV in Austin. "First of all, we didn't lose Asian-Americans because they got any gifts. He did worse with Asian-Americans than he did with Latinos. This is the hardest-working and most successful ethnic group in America--they ain't into gifts.

"Second, it's an insult to all Americans," he continued. "It reduces us to economic entities. You have no passion, no idealism, no dreams, no philosophy. If it had been that simple, my question would be, 'Why didn't you outbid him?' He had enough billionaire supporters, if buying the electorate was the key, he could have got all his super PAC friends together and said, don't buy ads, give gifts. Be like the northwest Indians who have gift-giving ceremonies. We could have gone town-by-town and said, 'Come here, let me give you gifts. Here are Republican gifts.' An elephant coming in with gifts on it."

I think that Mitt basically doesn't care any more because he realizes he will never be president....so basically he now is saying what he really believes.....

Looking for a sign that the Republican Party might have some leaders who can appeal to younger voters? Mitt Romney cited the Beach Boys, Garth Brooks and the Eagles among his favorite musicians, but Sen. Marco Rubio raised some eyebrows Monday with hat tips to N.W.A and Public Enemy.

Rubio, 42, who has sparked early 2016 presidential hype with a headlining visit to Iowa over the weekend, spoke to GQ about a number of topics, but his opinions on music and the Earth’s age overshadowed his perspective on President Obama and young Republicans.

The Florida senator highlighted N.W.A’s “Straight Outta Compton,” “Killuminati” by Tupac Shakur and “Lose Yourself” by Eminem as his three favorite rap songs and offered his own views on the modern hip-hop scene.

“Hip-hop’s 30 years old now and it’s crossed over and sort of become indistinguishable from pop music in general,” Rubio said. “You know, many people say Nicki Minaj is a rapper, but she’s also a singer. Kanye’s another guy who’s also a rapper, but his songs aren’t pure rap anymore. There’s also all these collaborations going on, which confuses everything. You know you’ve got the guy from Miami, Pitbull, who’s on TV selling a car and then he’s advertising for Dr. Pepper.”

N.W.A, which broke new ground during the late 1980s, drew attention from groups like Focus on the Family, with its debut album, “Straight Outta Compton,” among the first to be given the new “parental advisory” status. And the chorus of the second song from that debut, dedicated to the group’s pointed rebuke of police brutality, by itself is still bound to raise hackles among social conservatives.

As for Eminem, Rubio acknowledged that “It’s harder to listen to than ever before because I have a bunch of kids and you just can’t put it on.”

Rubio’s preferences may seem inconsequential to his politics, but musicians played a prominent role in this year’s presidential election. Obama campaign events leaned heavily on stars like Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z, with the two performers joining forces on the final day of campaigning.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another potential Republican presidential contender in 2016, highlighted his love for Springsteen in an appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” And Romney’s vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), used his music preferences to contrast his relative youth with Romney’s age during his address at the Republican National Convention, referring to his iPod, which "starts with AC/DC and ends with Zeppelin."

But if Rubio’s playlists don’t necessarily play to the Republican base, his stance on the Earth’s age edges a bit closer to appealing to the party’s religious base.

“I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to team them all,” Rubio said.

“Whether the Earth was created in seven days or seven actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.”

In some cases, Romney paid four times as much for TV ads as Obama Daily Caller ^ | 11/19/2012 | Matt K. Lewis

Posted on Monday, November 19, 2012 10:42:26 PM by SeekAndFind

Mitt Romney didn't just pay too much in taxes. As Politico reported last month, he paid too much for his TV ads, too.

(The following graphic represents early September media buys in Columbus, Ohio. It was provided to TheDC by a national media buyer with extensive background buying in America's most competitive state, and is representative of other examples we have seen):

The cost differential is attributable to the fact that Team Obama bought "preemptable" or or "lowest unit rate" ads --- while Team Romney paid for "fixed," non-preemptable rates.

"Obama could deliver 1,000 points for a fourth as much as Romney," said one source.

So why didn't Team Romney negotiate better rates? Since spots are typically not bumped in early September, the notion of reserving non-preemptable ads --- in order to guarantee they would air --- seems implausible.

According to our source, Team Obama simply did the “due diligence to find where the lowest unit rate was,” a tedious process which “takes manpower.”

Conversely, it appears Team Romney simply didn’t want bother with the hassle. So they threw money at the problem — and walked away.

This, no doubt, saved a lot of time and energy. But it also cost a lot of money.

Obama bought the ads months before the election - Romney team claimed they PREFERRED to pay more if it meant they could choose the EXACT times/stations/shows in which the ads would run. Obama ran the ads in bulk - while ROmney tried to very specifically target certain viewers.

The win on the media buys goes to the community organizer. Romney was disorganized and all of the map the entire campaign.

Obama bought the ads months before the election - Romney team claimed they PREFERRED to pay more if it meant they could choose the EXACT times/stations/shows in which the ads would run. Obama ran the ads in bulk - while ROmney tried to very specifically target certain viewers.

The win on the media buys goes to the community organizer. Romney was disorganized and all of the map the entire campaign.

Obama had an amazing organization...he has perfected campaigning to a fine art.....just him beating Hillary was amazing considering the influence and big money donors of the Clintons

remember all the people who said he was a mess with no campaign strength, and that community organizers aren't a real job?

He beat mccain, beat hilary, beat romney...

Obama also has David Axelrod.....that guy is a genius plain and simple..also he knows how to run black candidates for office.....there have been only three black senators since reconstruction...David got two of them elecxted and got Obama to the presidency

as for your comment about community organizing, you are right...people make fun of Obama for having such a job but his chicago organization is amazing in how they run his campaigns

Obama also has David Axelrod.....that guy is a genius plain and simple..also he knows how to run black candidates for office.....there have been only three black senators since reconstruction...David got two of them elecxted and got Obama to the presidency

as for your comment about community organizing, you are right...people make fun of Obama for having such a job but his chicago organization is amazing in how they run his campaigns

axelrod will be probably make ten million dollars getting the 2016 Dem elected.

Yes, people will gloat "rats fleeing the ship" when he quietly resigns to start his consulting firm.

Then the dude will community organize his way to another win - Imagine his ass with a superPAC, $300 mil to spend, and all his experience...

Add in Hilary, Bill, Obama campaigning for them if he's popular at the time... and the theme being "One last clinton term".

axelrod will be probably make ten million dollars getting the 2016 Dem elected.

Yes, people will gloat "rats fleeing the ship" when he quietly resigns to start his consulting firm.

Then the dude will community organize his way to another win - Imagine his ass with a superPAC, $300 mil to spend, and all his experience...

Add in Hilary, Bill, Obama campaigning for them if he's popular at the time... and the theme being "One last clinton term".

It'd be tough to beat. Any-other-dem would be easy to beat though.

agreed...and blacks LOVE Hillary...and so do women who view her as their cross-bearer......she would do well with independents as well I think....not to mention Hillary would clean up with foreign donations since everybody in the world knows her..and her foreign policy experience would destroy the Republicans

agreed...and blacks LOVE Hillary...and so do women who view her as their cross-bearer......she would do well with independents as well I think....not to mention Hillary would clean up with foreign donations since everybody in the world knows her..and her foreign policy experience would destroy the Republicans

Evangelical leaders and conservative activists have a simple message for establishment Republicans about Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid: We told you so.

After nearly two weeks of listening to GOP officials pledge to assert greater control over the party and its most strident voices in the wake of Romney’s loss, grass-roots activists have begun to fight back, saying that they are not to blame for the party’s losses in November.

“The moderates have had their candidate in 2008 and they had their candidate in 2012. And they got crushed in both elections. Now they tell us we have to keep moderating. If we do that, will we win?” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader. Vander Plaats is an influential Christian conservative who opposed Romney in the Iowa caucuses 10 months ago and opposed Sen. John McCain’s candidacy four years ago.

The conservative backlash sets up an internal fight for the direction of the Republican Party, as many top leaders in Washington have proposed moderating their views on citizenship for illegal immigrants, to appeal to Latino voters. In addition, many top GOP officials have called for softening the party’s rhetoric on social issues, following the embarrassing showing by Senate candidates who were routed after publicly musing about denying abortion services to women who had been raped.

Ted Cruz, a tea party favorite, trounced Texas’s establishment candidate in a primary on his way to becoming the second Hispanic Republican in the Senate, and the battle he waged in the Lone Star State epitomizes the fight between the two sides. Although he is considered a rising star with a personal biography that GOP leaders wish to promote, Cruz falls squarely in the camp that thinks Romney was not conservative enough and did not fully articulate a conservative contrast to President Obama, except during the first presidential debate.

“It was the one time we actually contested ideas, presented two viewpoints and directions for the country,” he said at the Federalist Society’s annual dinner in Washington. “And then, inevitably, there are these mandarins of politics, who give the voice: ‘Don’t show any contrasts. Don’t rock the boat.’ So by the third debate, I’m pretty certain Mitt Romney actually French-kissed Barack Obama.”

Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania who finished second to Romney in the GOP primary, lampooned Romney’s assertion that Obama’s victory was fueled by “gifts” to core liberal constituencies in the form of legislative favors.

“The American people do not want ‘gifts’ from their leaders, particularly when these gifts leave a steep bill for our children to pay, but they do want us to be on their side,” Santorum wrote in a USA Today op-ed published Monday. He placed the blame on the national party, saying it lacked an appealing agenda: “We as a party, the party of Ronald Reagan and ‘Morning in America,’ failed to provide an agenda that shows we care.”

The dispute began to take shape soon after Obama was declared the winner and Republicans, who had hoped to claim the Senate majority, lost two seats. Two days after the election, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told ABC News that the Republicans’ mission was to appeal to nonwhite voters: “How do we speak to all Americans? You know, not just to people who look like us and act like us, but how do we speak to all Americans?”

The fight ahead will come in two phases, the first being legislative debates on taxes, entitlements and immigration, and the second in the GOP primary battles in the 2014 midterm elections.

Congressional Republican leaders have rejected Obama’s call for higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, but they have opened the door to more revenue streaming into the Treasury by limiting exemptions and closing loopholes as part of a broad tax-code overhaul. The president says those measures would not produce enough revenue.

More problematic for Republicans is the drift of Hispanic voters into the Democratic fold. Obama won among Hispanic voters by 44 percentage points this year, up eight points from 2008.

“Hispanics are an ever-important part of the electorate that can’t be ignored. The scope of the challenge is broad, but there is opportunity ahead for conservatives to engage,” Jennifer S. Korn of the Hispanic Leadership Network, a Republican-funded group designed to do outreach, wrote in a memo circulated over the weekend.

Korn warned that two reliably Republican states worth 49 electoral votes combined could become swing states if demographic trendlines continue. In 2004, George W. Bush tied in the Hispanic vote in Texas and lost in Arizona by 13 percentage points. Romney lost the Hispanic vote by more than 40 points in both states.

After several years of focusing on border security as the centerpiece of their immigration proposals, many senior party officials have reversed course and suggested that they should at least support the DREAM Act, which would allow the children of illegal immigrants to avoid deportation.

Such a move would spark a huge internal fight with some conservatives. Dan Stein, president of the hard-line Federation for American Immigration Reform, insisted that the 2012 election was decided on issues other than immigration and that the push for the party to change its position represents opportunism by those who have always favored a more accommodating approach. He said the party’s elite is captive to business interests who favor increased immigration to reduce labor costs.

“There’s no evidence, none, that amnesty will bond Hispanics to the Republican Party,” he said. “This post-election chatter is coming from people who, for the most part, have generally disagreed with the need for stronger border control or less immigration. . . . This is going to be a long, protracted debate.”

The 2014 Senate races will serve as a test for establishment control of the political process. For the third consecutive cycle, Republicans will begin as heavy favorites to gain a large bloc of seats, and some party leaders want a bigger role in choosing those nominees. In 2010 and 2012, Republicans say, bad nominees in Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Missouri and Nevada cost them what should have been easy victories. If those seats were in GOP hands today, the Senate would be deadlocked at 50-50.

Some outside groups, however, stand ready to fight for the most conservative nominee, pointing to Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) as examples of rising stars who won Senate races without establishment support.

“The party is rarely in a position to determine the best candidate,” said Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth. “When you have someone who can articulate a clear, convincing, conservative message, they win.”

Obama also has David Axelrod.....that guy is a genius plain and simple..also he knows how to run black candidates for office.....there have been only three black senators since reconstruction...David got two of them elecxted and got Obama to the presidency

as for your comment about community organizing, you are right...people make fun of Obama for having such a job but his chicago organization is amazing in how they run his campaigns

David Plouffe is every bit equally important to the success of Obama's two presidential campaigns as Axe.

President Obama’s campaign manager said Tuesday that an ad suggesting Jeep was moving production to China was the biggest mistake made by Mitt Romney’s campaign.

“They ended up spending the last 14 days of the election in the Midwest on the defense,” Messina said at a Politico Playbook breakfast. The ad was criticized by factcheckers and by major car companies.

Messina said that one of the best decisions made by the Obama campaign was to hire non-political tech staff — advice he got from Google chairman Eric Schmidt.

If you asked Harper Reed, the campaign’s chief technology officer, what the campaign did, Messina said, he would say, ”They just built a whole bunch of things to make door knocking easier.”

Some of those tools — in particular, the social Dashboard — will be used to pressure lawmakers on a fiscal cliff deal, Messina suggested.

“People want to be involved in supporting the president’s agenda in the next four years,” he said. Supporters were asked in a recent email how they would ”like to stay involved in the future.” That’s a shift from 2008, when Obama shut down his network after the election.

Messina, who worked in the administration from 2009 to 2011, said he too will likely be working from the outside this term.

“I think my future is probably outside the White House,” helping advocate for Obama’s agenda, he said. A decision on his future role will be made by the inauguration, Messina said. To start, he’s taking a vacation for the first time in five years. “The president and I were joking recently about how bad I look,” he said.